Doctor Potter
by MyWhitelighter
Summary: James Potter has it far from easy - after a messy breakup with Lily Evans on the cusp of graduation, he has to deal with the fallout and working routinely with the woman he's still in love with, all the while trying not to get too wrapped up in the politics and conspiratorial intrigue he'd never expected to find working at St. Mungo's Hospital. James/Lily, First Wizarding War.
1. And Other Misdemeanours

**I know the last thing I need is a new story in the works, but I just can't help myself when inspiration strikes! This is a James/Lily with a bit of a twist. As ever, my only wish is for you to enjoy and if there's enough interest I will continue it. Thanks all! **

* * *

_'Cause in my head there's a greyhound station  
where I send my thoughts to far off destinations_

-Death Cab for Cutie

* * *

**Chapter One: And Other Misdemeanors**

Some people spend a lot of time deliberating over what they want to do with their lives; deciding whether they throw themselves out there and make a difference, or become one of those wizards who spends the remainder of their days trapped behind a desk trying to decide whether a cauldron is an illegal size because it's half a centimetre out of proportion, as it really_ can b_e a difficult decision. Not that I'm belittling Illegal-Cauldron-Judgers of anything, I'm sure it's a perfectly legitimate career path. If you're into that sort of thing. And as dull as a board. I, of course, am neither, so find myself quite contentedly falling into the first category. Throwing myself out there, making a difference.

Well, that's the plan anyway.

For me it was never a tough decision. I'd always known _exactly _what I wanted to do with my future and I stuck with it. Well, that's a lie, when I was _really _little I rather fancied myself becoming a rock-star-master-chef, but that's a story for another time. And if you laugh I'll hate you because _that_ is what you call a legitimate career path. I just didn't have the strength of will to follow it through. My one true regret, I can assure you. Anyway, I'm going off on one – the fact that I'd been pretty clear on what I wanted to do after Hogwarts made things a lot easier for me, and made all of those Careers Advice interviews they'd given us throughout seventh year completely pointless.

Well, I suppose not completely pointless. Professor Marsdale had an _impressive_ rack.

The job I chose was a toughie, anyway. Had to get Exceeds Expectations in all my subjects, which was actually kinda easy because I'm basically a straight O student. No, it's not arrogance; I kindly refer to it as "self-assuredness". But I digress. Everyone always assumes that graduation is this wonderful experience, where every teacher at Hogwarts sends you off with kisses and hugs and warm wishes for the future, leaving you bright and optimistic about the path you're going to take.

Lies. And. Slander.

It's quite the contrary, actually. Once you're no longer a student there and they can't have charges pressed against them for sticking a boot up your ass, they do exactly that. Hell, they practically pack your bags _for_ you and yell "don't hurry back!" as you're leaving. Or maybe that was just me. And Professor Sinatra. I'm sorry, okay, but Divination is a crap subject and Sinatra was a manipulative mood-swinging son-of-a who was probably just as pleased to see the back of my head as I was at her favourite pet rat hanging from the chandelier in her classroom in fourth year. She had an unhealthy obsession with it; it was really for the better of the animal that I put it up there. I was essentially an activist acting in its defence. I was a hero. Basically I'm just a saviour for the whole animal kingdom.

Obviously.

This hero was busy trying to push himself through a busy London street, rucksack over one shoulder and pocket full of optimism at the ready as I reached my destination – with any luck I wouldn't be late, but my roommate/best friend/relentless-tormentor chose not to wake me up at the time I asked him to, so the chances are I'd end up less punctual than I would prefer on my first day at my new job. I reached an old brick building which, if I'm honest, looked a bit doomed, a battered metal sign swinging overhead reading _Purge and Dowse, Ltd_ being the only clue that I'd made it to the right place. Don't worry, I haven't ended up throwing myself into some weird career in some rundown muggle department store – no, this sign was only a ruse. Where I was _really_ going involved me stepping through the glass much as I had a certain barrier between Platforms 9 and 10 for the last seven years of my life.

I felt a coolness wash over me I'd come to associate with magical barriers, and the busy room I'd stepped into felt, if possible, even busier than the street outside. Along the wall to my left and spiralling around the circular reception were rows of not-too-comfortable waiting chairs, occupied sporadically by the odd man or woman sporting an extra arm, an elephant trunk, and even missing vital extremities in others. I winced as I passed a man clutching very tightly to his Niagara's, and could only sympathise with whatever he'd managed to do to them. A few turned to me with pleading looks when they spotted my white uniform, but I could only helplessly point to my bright red armband citing me as a Trainee, and try and make a hasty exit as I headed towards the front desk.

If you haven't figured it out yet, let me help; this is St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, and yes, I am a Healer in Training. So basically I really _am_ a hero, if you get what I mean. Unfortunately currently this hero was running really very late, so as I reached the front desk I tapped it lightly to gain the attention of the pretty brunette receptionist.

"This is St. Mungo's, how can I help?"

"I'm one of the new trainees? I know I'm so late, I just had an issue with my roommate this morning and..." I could tell by her knowing smile she probably didn't need further elaboration. Stupid smug cow. I bet she's slept with Sirius. Maybe she even put him up to it?

Her chestnut eyes sparkled with good-natured amusement, but I was frustrated. "There's always one, Mr. Potter, don't worry," I wondered how she could've known my name before remembering I was wearing a name badge. "Down that hall, eighth door on your left – that's the conference hall, where you'll be starting your orientation. Have a nice day."

Offering her a muttered thank you I charged down the corridor in question, taking a moment to compose myself before opening the door and mentally bracing for whatever would be on the other side. By all accounts it seemed pretty normal, the entrance I'd just used sitting at the side of a large hall kind of area, rows of grey-topped tables, each with a place set with a quill and ink for taking notes like a knife and fork at a table. Most of these seats were taken, attendees to a figurative last supper with the dreading looks to boot, and a room full of eyes swivelled around to face that guy who was late.

(That was me. Keep following.)

"Ah, welcome," a firm tone came from my right – what I had seemingly decided not to look at was the authority figure, standing looking incredibly bored at the podium with a neatly trimmed buzz cut and a jaw line that had a firmness that rivalled the sleek trim on the new Cleansweep 5. I mean holy _cow_, I could slice bricks in two with a jaw like that. Unfortunately, he didn't look too impressed with me. He made a show of looking at his list slowly as I hovered uncertainly by the door, not sure where I should try and find a seat. "You must be the elusive Mr. Potter, punctual as a star. Congratulations, you just made it onto the list of Healer Hopkins' Most Despised."

I was unsure what to make of this.

"My name is Healer Hopkins; find your ass a chair, Mr. Potter."

Having the good grace to look guilty, and mildly mortified at being on my superior's "Most Despised" list within twenty minutes of being on the job (I would _kill_ Sirius), I made a beeline for the nearest available seat on the end of a row with a bunch of other guys dressed in white robes, all with red armbands to match mine indicating the Healer-In-Training status. Unfortunately for me, I had to pick the worst possible vacant seat in the room.

"Ugh, I forgot you were going to be here," came the tired sigh from beside me as a hand reached to brush an auburn bang from an emerald eye.

Instead I rolled my eyes. "Don't get too excited Lily, this was the only free seat in the house."

She clicked her tongue before hissing back. "I can't believe you actually think you get to be funny right now. You walk in here twenty _fucking_ minutes late and you think you have the right to be funny?"

"You think I'm funny?"

A loud throat clearing had me thinking our conversation wasn't as quiet as we thought. "When you two are finished, I actually have the next generation of Healers to start lecturing, requires full-frontal focus, thanks."

I coughed and decided that this man had an even crappier sense of humour than old Professor Sinatra. What I wouldn't give for a mood-swing Divination-induced sandwich-throwing competition like we all had fun in during fifth year to get myself out of the overhanging awkwardness. Instead I waved a hand for him to continue and decided burying my face into the overly bushy curls of my ex-girlfriend would grant me more ills than favours, and sat through my embarrassment alone.

Healer Hopkins milked it. Sweet baby Merlin I thought he would keep staring pointedly and never get back to the shit he was supposed to be doing.

"Let me clear one thing out right now, before we get started in anything serious. All of you bright-faced bucks who entered this room hoping to make a difference need to prepare yourselves for some serious bullshit over the next few years," he hesitated, as if something he said might've been wrong. "Afterthought - if my language bothers you, you'll hear worse once you're removing a child's-first-broom from the rear end of their overly indulgent father, while the mother screams 'I should have married your brother'. Been there, and I've had worse. You think people come in here with real problems? I can guarantee you eighty percent of the people outside that door are here because _they fucked up magic_. So get that into your head before you start trying to change the world."

I chanced a look around; I couldn't be the only one feeling like I'd walked into the wrong seminar. 'Um, sorry, I was here for Healer Training? My James-Potter-versus-the-world class isn't until this afternoon. I've been practicing my why-am-I-so-much-sexier-than-everyone-else face especially.' From what I could gather, I wasn't entirely alone in my discomfort. I was half tempted to turn around and try and gauge the reaction of the redhead beside me, but I think if I look at her too long I might turn to stone. She seems to share this feeling, although if she looked at me she'd probably be trapped in a whole other way, if you know what I'm saying. I'm sort of irresistible.

"To the next order of business," Hopkins' sharp tone cut across my thinking, and I found myself actually staring at his jaw line a little more than I should. No but seriously, I bet he bends razors on that thing. "At the moment, each and every one of you is a killer. Each and every one of you _will_ kill someone, or injure someone, or remove some necessary appendages with a badly-placed sharp object if you work without my direct supervision."

I leaned very slightly to my left and whispered quietly; "You know, you really came close to that with your Charms textbook on the day before graduation."

"Don't talk to me."

"You're kind of moody, right? It's unbecoming."

Lily's smile, saccharine sweet, didn't fool me for a second. "You're kind of a prick, you know that?"

I grinned. I knew.

"As of _this_ moment," Hopkins said louder, as if to draw attention back to his podium and perfectly sculpted chin. "None of you will touch a patient unless I tell you to. Understood?" There was silence, none of us really sure if he wanted some kind of response. "Excuse me, ladies, I can't tell if you understood me or whether I'm just wasting air and seconds of my life on a pack of idealistic pygmy puffs. Do you. Understand?"

A murmur of assent rippled through the crowd and he seemed content with this, shuffling a few more of his papers. What the fuck did I just walk into, boot camp?

"I need a volunteer." No one wanted to take up the mantle; actually, I'm pretty sure almost everyone shrank back in their seat. Hopkins rolled his eyes. "Potter that means _you_." I blinked in surprise and he stared at me as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Of course, how silly of me not to realise.

"Right," I muttered, standing up and raising my eyebrows in silent question. What did he want me to do?

He waved a hand. "Get down here asshole; I said I need a volunteer not a traffic cone." Doing as I was told, I wandered, albeit a little warily, down to where he was standing and he pulled me closer still as I reached him. "Your first lesson today involves the most basic aspect of healing - no matter where you are in this dump, you _will_ remember this." It felt distinctly more like a threat than a lesson. Up close he was a little less scary - his grey eyes spoke of a battle-worn weariness and the wrinkles suggested age, but there was a hardiness about him I could only identify as being the price of experience. I found myself wondering how many people he'd watched pass on in his time at St. Mungo's.

"I call them the three B's, and they are the most important thing about a diagnosing a patient's immediate problem. First - _breathing_," he grabbed my chin painfully and forced me to look upwards, placing his other palm just above the base of my neck. "Is your patient breathing? If they're not, you're fucked and need to think about resus - that's something we'll get into later. Second," to this he kicked the back of my knee and I winced, the reflex causing me to fall forwards and lose my balance, landing painfully on my knees. "_Bones_. Do you see any bones? If you do, are they in the right place? The right shape? If you don't, should you?" Man was a fucking _madman_, and yet he held the whole room in such fixed rapt attention that I admired him for it. When he wasn't causing me physical harm. For the final part of his apparent lecture he stood behind me and put one hand on either side of my face and tensed them, his grip so firm I could barely move. "The last one is _blood_. If you see some, your patient is in trouble. Those are the essentials to an emergency. Remember them, and you'll be one penguin step closer to transforming yourself from a killer to somebody useful."

His vice like grip didn't release, and instead he knelt down on his haunches beside me and hissed in my ear. "Turn up late for one of my lectures again, Mr. Potter, and I'll make sure you never set another foot inside this Hospital. Are we clear?"

I swallowed. "Crystal."

* * *

Healer training is really a far from complicated thing, as was explained to us. In the mornings you attended seminars to do with the basics of healing; this was where you learnt all your theory, and what I'd just sat in on with Hopkins. After lunch we did rounds, heading around Mungo's with a Healer-in-Charge to try and get to grips with the workings of the well-oiled machine known as the whole hospital, and to try and apply our newfound knowledge into treatments of patients. After that, we go our separate ways and rotate shifts. Essentially, we're supposed to help out where we can, but we're not supposed to perform any sort of procedures without the supervision of a fully trained Healer or Medinurse. Which totally suits me, because with Hopkins' charming speech this morning on how all I was at the moment was an untrained killer, I didn't much feel like going within five feet of a genuine sick person.

Which really wasn't where I was planning this whole Healer thing to go.

Rounds had been reasonably uneventful; mercifully we'd been passed over to the charming Healer Mullins who proved to be patient and witty in equal measure, rather than the condescension and belittling we'd come to expect from Hopkins in the few short hours we'd spent together. It looked like not every Healer in the place was a narcissistic prick who, as of a few hours ago, officially had it out for me. Mullins had let us go around four in the afternoon, and she'd advised us to spend the next few hours trying to find our own way around the hospital and getting comfortable with the information overload we'd been given over the past few hours; which of course we all interpreted as "go to the staff lounge and chill out". It'd been a _long_ day, and there was still each other to get to know.

There actually weren't as many Trainee Healers as the crowd in the conference room had initially suggested - there had also been Trainee Medinurses, Mediwizards, Researchers, and various other support staff, characterized by their green, orange, blue and yellow armbands respectively. I won't bother going into detail about what they involve - if you're interested, you should go to those Careers Advice meetings and work it out. Tell Professor Marsdale I send my love, am single, and no longer a student. Unless Sirius has gotten there first, in which case I'd rather you said nothing at all. I do have s_ome s_tandards.

As for the Trainee Healers, we were a bit of a ragtag group; six of us in total. Myself and the charming Lily Evans, an ally I'd recently made in the shy, stuttering, unfortunately named Hippocrates Smethwyck, the thirty-year-old Eddie White (it's never too late?), an old classmate Mary Macdonald and the so far silent-but-deadly(-maybe?) Anneka Milaine. It was to this group I was heading towards when I made my way back to the staff lounge, but loud noises from one of the supply closets to my left caught me off-guard, and I paused to listen.

I'm not a pervert, okay? I know what people get up to in those closets, I've heard all the stories - but this certainly didn't sound like a cheeky bit of rough and tumble, in fact what I could identify as insults seemed to be flying back and forth. I'm a Gryffindor at heart, and just at the sound of that I opened the door and blinked at the sight before me. The supply closet consisted of narrow rows upon rows of medicinal and healing supplies, in what appeared to be an almost endless room - as far as I'm aware, every supply closet door around Mungo's leads into this room, and from what I've heard it really _is_ endless. Ah magic, how I love thee. But what garnered my attention was not the vastness of the space, but the young man sat hunched against one of the shelves trying to protect his face from two men standing over him. I identified the younger man as Hippocrates Smethwyck, a fellow Trainee, and the white robes sans the armbands of the two others cited them as fully trained Healers.

"Isn't this place for curing injuries, not making them?" I looked from one to the other and they stepped back; I could spot blood on the knuckle of the first and I narrowed my eyes.

One of them glared at me, before grabbing Smethwyck by the collar of his robes and pulling him into an upright position. He whimpered. "Stay out of what you don't understand, trainee."

Now that didn't sit right with me at all. "I understand that it's two against one, and call me old fashioned but isn't that a little unfair?"

"You wanna make it two on two?" The second guy stepped up, reaching for his wand and I reached for mine in the same moment. I was spared from having either to think of a spell super fast or having the shit kicked out of me by the door I'd just entered through opening, and Healer-in-Charge Jack Hopkins stepping in, whistling a merry tune before taking in what he'd walked in on.

He shot all four of us a feigned confused look, his tone as patronising as ever. "Is it some kind of mating ritual? I see wands and I see blood, but it _better_ not be a fight because that sets a very negative example in a place of healing." Well, I know what they say about great minds, but I wasn't sure I enjoyed the prospect of being compared to Hopkins. He dropped the act, gritting his teeth. "Ladies, put them away and get the fuck out of my supply closet."

The first thing I did was head over to Smethwyck and see if he was alright – as far as I could tell only his bottom lip was bleeding and he looked a little shaken up, but the Healers hadn't done much to him. I turned and saw Hopkins muttering angrily to the pair of them before shoving one and looking back over to us as they left, the first throwing me a particularly rude gesture which I suspected didn't bode well for any potential future friendships.

"You okay, Smethy?" He asked as he came over, ignoring me completely and checking on Smethwyck.

"Yeah, I – I think so, they just caught me off guard."

Hopkins gritted his teeth. "I told you not to come into the closet alone, you're just setting yourself up to get cornered and pissed on."

"I came in for some spare robes for a Medinurse, she said she got blood all over hers, sorry Hop."

Hopkins jerked a thumb at me. "Fourth shelf on your left, Potter." I did as I was told and pulled out some neatly folded white robes with a pigment green sash visible across the top. "I'm not always going to come to your rescue, so you need to man up and learn how to punch back." Smethwyck nodded.

"I don't mean to interrupt," I frowned. "But if those guys were just in here beating the crap out of a trainee, isn't there some kind of disciplinary measure that needs to be taken? Shouldn't you fire them?"

"It's not up to me," Hopkins returned, and for a moment I thought I saw a hint of genuine compassion there when he lifted his wand to tap Smethwyck's lip and the blood disappeared. "We've got too few Healers and too many patients to start booting out fully trained medicinal men. Now get out you bunch of girls before I make you." We didn't need telling twice, and Smethwyck and I practically tumbled out of the door in our haste to get away from him.

"I wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley," Smethwyck mumbled, straightening out the robes in his hands.

"You're telling me. Did you see what he did to me in orientation this morning?"

Smethwyck gave me a shy smile. "Thanks for coming in. I have a feeling I might have lost a little more blood if you were any later."

"Well you've got Hopkins pretty well trained, so I doubt you really needed me," I waved a dismissive hand but smiled nonetheless. "How did you do that so fast, anyway?" If it were me in there, I doubt Hopkins would have done a thing. "Scratch that, I'd much rather know what the hell was going on back there."

Here Smethwyck's steps faltered and he hung his head sheepishly. "I, um, I was here last year. Hop knows me pretty well by now. And don't worry about those guys, I deserved it."

"That's bullshit, no one deserves that," I insisted.

"Yeah, well, when you fail your exams and end up stuck in general training for another year you kinda feel like having the crap beaten out of you once in a while."

Now I felt like I understood. "Were those guys trainees with you last year?"

"Yep. And I'm the failure."

"Hey, come on, I've heard stories about loads of great Healers who failed their first year. What about Carly Montello, right? The only Healer to ever complete the twenty-four-hour shift, and she failed her first two years." I read about that in one of the textbooks I'd been obligated to buy for training – the twenty-four-hour shift was an old unofficial competition to see if you can stay awake and on the job for twenty-four hours, and you have to treat a minimum of fifty patients. Carly Montello managed sixty-seven, and so far she was my hero.

Smethwyck grimaced. "At least people _liked_ her."

"I like you," I shrugged, but Smethwyck looked doubtful.

"That's Mungo's social suicide."

"Well, Hopkins already hates me so I don't see the problem with the whole hospital following his example."

At this Smethwyck chuckled. "Hop is just a big puppy, he likes to pick on someone every year. Last year it was this trainee called Marvin, and he nearly ran him out of Mungo's it was so bad – he finished the year top of his class. Hop picks on the guys he thinks have potential." This didn't sound right to me, he'd never even _met_ me at the point he put me on his 'Most Despised'. I was late, now he hates me; it sounded pretty textbook without all the psychoanalysis crap.

"Wish I could believe you Hippo, wish I could," I sighed.

"Um, I better go get these robes to that Medinurse, she's up in Creature Induced Injuries. Maybe I'll see you later?" He looked at me hopefully, and I gave him a reassuring smile.

"Absolutely."

So maybe he was no Sirius Black, but he was nice enough and I have a bit of a chivalry complex when it comes to damsels in distress, regardless of gender. If nothing else maybe I could help keep the older Healers off his back, and considering the amount of enemies I seem to have made so far it'd be nice to get myself an ally. Sheesh, I've been here, what, seven hours? I didn't exactly cut myself many breaks. Mungo's was supposed to my chance for a fresh start; where I could leave all the pranks behind and establish my new persona as being hardworking and capable, something which is really needed in this day and age.

I know, I know. It was a tall order. But a kid can dream, right?

Speaking of hardworking individuals who didn't cut me any breaks, I spotted Lily Evans talking to a Medinurse and perusing a chart animatedly and I couldn't help but smile. Trust her to get stuck in straight away. We actually discussed the healing programme together, you know? Back in seventh year – besides the fact it was something we were both really interested in, it seemed like the perfect thing to do together. Of course that was before everything got shot to shit, but what can you do. If you have questions, let me answer them plain and simple; we were juvenile, and couldn't sustain it. I know after three years of pursuing her I expected us to last a little bit longer than five months, but when you're pushing something that just won't go you know when to call it quits. And throw Charms textbooks at each other. Yup.

"Lily," I slid up behind her and gave her a dazzling smile as soon as the Medinurse left her. "What'cha looking at?"

She gave me a withering look. "None of your business."

"Hey, listen," I swiped the chart from her grasp and held it out of her reach when she tried to grab it back, settling for hiding it behind my back as I tried to garner her attention. "I know we're not really friends right now –" She snorted. "But this Healer thing is _crazy_, and I was hoping we could just be adults and let bygones be bygones so we can get along for the next year. You know, so I don't have to fear for my favourite appendages because of those dangerously heavy healing textbooks in your possession." This elicited a very small reluctant smile from her, and my triumph was unparalleled. Despite being angry with me this morning, she could at least still appreciate my sense of humour.

She pursed her lips, as if pondering this. "I say... while I'm sure that would be the right thing to do and I commend you for your maturity," she surprised me and grabbed for the chart while I was distracted. "You did really screw me over, James," I blinked. "And I don't really _want_ to be your friend."

I opened my mouth to protest but she held up a hand. "It's nothing against you personally, although you did strut around like a royal prat in orientation, praise Merlin for Healer Hopkins –"

"Hey!"

"– But if anyone else had done to me the same thing you did, I wouldn't want to hang around with them either. Yeah, it's sad, and I'll miss the banter, but a girl's got to survive the best way she can. So do me a favour and bugger off, okay James?" I was completely dumbfounded and she offered me a coy smile and tapped me lightly on the cheek as she left, my gaze unwittingly following her as she went.

I called out after her. "We can't even be civil?"

She looked back over her shoulder with a nonchalant shrug. "Depends on my mood."

_Damn_, I missed the banter.

About to continue my path up to the staff lounge where I'd been heading to initially, I turned a corner and collided right into an older man in a purple dressing gown – about to utter an apology and head on my way, I found my arms reaching out instinctively to catch his limp body as he fell to the ground, and my heart slammed into overdrive.

"A little help over here!" I called out immediately, assessing the man as best I could before remembering what I'd learned in orientation that morning. Three B's. Blood, bones, and –

"Clear his airway James, now!" Lily was at my side in a flash and I did as I was told, pulling at the collar of the tight pyjama style shirt. I knew some basics, and pressed a finger to the base of his throat.

Panic was now rising through me in waves. "He's not breathing." Holy, holy fucking crap. Lily remained completely calm though, and pulled out her wand and muttered something, touching the tip to his lips and then to his chest. Nothing happened and she frowned, and I remembered that quirk of her eyebrow meant she was worried. I repeated my call for help to anyone else who might be around the nearby corridors, and thankfully I spotted a few Medinurses sprinting towards us.

Just like that, though, the man convulsed and began gasping for breath like a fish out of water, clutching onto me as if his life depended on it. In a flash we were being ushered out of the way as one of the Medinurses conjured a floating gurney and levitated him onto it, jogging to some far off room without another word. It was like clockwork in this place.

I turned to Lily, pocketing her wand and wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead as I tried to calm my racing heart. "What the hell was that?" I asked, pointing at her wand and still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. That man hadn't been breathing; that man had nearly _died_.

She shrugged, staring in the direction of where the man had been taken. "Basic resus. Resuscitation, like Hopkins said this morning," I remembered, but frowned because we hadn't actually been taught it - he'd only mentioned it. "I read ahead a few chapters."

And there it was. Just like that she was exactly the same girl I'd known throughout the whole of my time at Hogwarts, and she'd saved my ass for what must be the hundredth time. "You sly fox," I grinned appreciatively.

I could tell by the way she glowed that she appreciated the compliment, but she tried to wave it off flippantly. "Anyone could've done it. Even you."

"That was harsh."

"Good thing we're not friends, then." She arched an eyebrow at me before picking her chart off the floor and making to head back the way she'd come. It was as I watched the flow of her red hair, tied into a practical ponytail, and the white robes swishing about her that I felt the all too familiar gnawing in the bottom of my stomach and in the recesses of my heart that could only mean I'd realised one thing, three months too late.

Breaking up with Lily Evans was one of the worst mistakes I'd ever made.

_Shit_.

* * *

**Thoughts? Good, bad, ugly? I'd love to hear from you!**

**~MyWhitelighter**


	2. Chatter and Spatter

**Hello! Bit of a delay, but here is chapter two. I hope this satisfies! **

* * *

_But there's this ringing in my head_  
_(who said it was gonna be easy?)_  
_as the ghost of you hangs over my bed_

-All Time Low

* * *

**Chapter Two: Chatter and Spatter**

Flashback #7

"What the actual _fuck_ is wrong with you, James?"

I scrolled through my Quidditch Weekly idly with a sigh, fingers randomly turning the pages but not really absorbing any of the writing on them. I was far too distracted to make out anything except words and diagrams, but being distracted was exactly what I wanted to be.

"You'll have to be a little bit more specific," I instead replied in a bored tone. I acted ignorant, but it didn't take Albus Dumbledore to know why Sirius had stormed into my dorm room and was wagging an accusatory finger at me. Although, a surreptitious glance from the corner of my eye enlightened me that actually he was just standing there in complete and utter disbelief – he probably wasn't understanding the finer details of this situation.

He wavered for a moment at my apathy but regained his resolve. "I want to know why Lily Evans just told me you dumped her."

He takes absolutely no interest in my relationship with her for the past five months, and the moment we break up he's practically falling over my door to work out the dynamic. Go figure.

"Probably because I did?" I replied with a raised eyebrow. "What's it to you?"

"What's it to –?" He stopped, glaring at me incredulously before storming across the room to the bed and ripping the magazine from my hands. "What it is to me is that Lily Evans is my _friend_, and at the moment she's bawling her eyes out to Remus back in Gryffindor tower because of you." I remained silent, mutinous, but that didn't stop the tug on my heartstrings at hearing it. I didn't want to hear it. I prayed that if I just ignored him, he might go away and leave me to my misery. "But more importantly, _you_ are my friend. My best friend. And I know you well enough to know Lily Evans is more to you than the passing fancy you're currently treating her as."

I made a grab for the magazine but he held it out of reach and I sent him the frostiest look I could manage before getting up and heading to the window sill. "I'm not one to keep on polishing a dying Cleansweep," I pointed out neutrally. "And we weren't working. If you ask her I'm sure she'll come to the same conclusion."

"That's bullshit and you know it."

I sighed. It was never that easy with Sirius. Scarily, he knew me better than most people – knew how I worked, my motivations behind my actions, possibly better than I even knew myself. And he knew from the moment he walked in that room that something wasn't right, but hell if I was going to tell him. Maybe it was high time I started sorting out my own thoughts and not having to share them with another half.

Or so I told myself.

"Is it?" I challenged, but he didn't miss a beat.

"You don't just fight for a girl for three years and then give up after not even half of that time with her. Not even a _quarter_. Apart from being completely unlike you it's something an asshole would do and I don't like it." He stood his ground and folded his arms, staring at me with a familiar intensity.

In that moment he looked so no-nonsense and the way he was standing up for Lily made me want to fall down in front of him and tell him everything, get him on my side. Let him be my brother. I was a mess of contradictions, torn between the desire to keep him at arm's length and pull him in closer to drown with me. But if I didn't draw the line here, where could I draw it?

"Lily understands," I muttered evasively.

Sirius shook his head. "No, she doesn't. And frankly neither do I."

I chose not to respond to this. Mainly, I didn't know how. Even to myself my arguments felt weak and half-hearted, but I couldn't explain to him how strong the burning desire to keep Lily at arm's length was – he couldn't possibly understand. Sirius was all about _carpe diem_, seizing the day and loving deeply and feeling as much as you could from everything before it was gone, but I wasn't like that. I couldn't pretend I was, and the future always had a way of pressing into my thoughts in a way it never did for him.

I could tell from his expression he was waiting for me to spell it out, to give him that clarity and closure and reassurance that had always been my job, but seeing as I was having trouble justifying it to myself I knew I didn't stand a chance of convincing him. Maybe he saw me put up the proverbial wall and seal the Lily Evans corner of my mind, because a flicker of surprise (_and fear?_) shone in his eyes, but I stood my ground. I'd never closed off a part of myself to Sirius before.

But now I had.

In his distraction I made another grab for the magazine and returned triumphant, firmly cementing over my inner thoughts as I opened my mouth to reply.

"Well, maybe I'm just more of an asshole than you thought."

His reaction was a mixture of confusion and hurt, and most predominantly anger. I didn't realise what was happening until it was too late, when he pulled his fist back and punched me square in the nose. The pain sent me stumbling backwards onto the floor and my hand went instinctively to the blood now streaming down my face and leaving an acrid taste in my mouth. I sat where I was and stared up at him and he breathed heavily, seemingly coming to some sort of decision.

The air crackled between us for only a few moments before Sirius held out his hand to help me back to my feet.

I took it, and he was my brother once more.

* * *

Present

_"Just don't call me Evans again.  
__Do what you want, but if you go back to calling me Evans I will never forgive you."__  
_

The alarm charm buzzed in the corner of my mind and I groaned; that was the main problem with having a charm waking you up in the morning, clicking snooze involves getting up and finding your wand to turn it off, by which point it takes a special kind of person to be able to drop straight back to sleep. (Aka, Sirius Black.) Muttering profanities I turned the charm off and rubbed my tired eyes, but after last week's first-day-debacle I was determined not to be anything less than punctual where my job was concerned, if only at a vague attempt to redeem myself.

The flat Sirius and I shared was anything but modest – possessing small fortunes such as we did under our belts did afford certain luxuries, like the spacious two-bedroom-and-guest apartment in the centre of London on the small tucked away street of Old Compton, only a few blocks from Hyde Park and only a few more to the phone box that led down into the Ministry – not that Sirius ever used it. It was difficult to find a flat in the middle of London that owned a fireplace, but we'd hunted it down and as soon as we were moved in registered it into the Floo Network. Mungo's required a small apparition trip, but you win some, you lose some. Altogether not too bad for a place to live.

Sleep still clung to the corner of my eyes as I padded out into the kitchen, feeling oddly put out for the beginning of the day. I felt like I'd dreamt about something miserable, but the image was already fading from my fingertips before I'd had a chance to get a good look at it. Ah, well. I'm no girl. Who cares?

"James," Came a moan from behind me as I poured myself a cup of coffee, and I turned to see aforementioned sleep-fiend Mr. Black stumbling from his room looking even more tired than I was.

"Early man," I chirped, taking a sip. "Company last night?"

"When would I _ever_?" He asked, looking incredulously at me as he walked by me to head straight for the fridge.

I merely raised an eyebrow. "How early was she out?"

"About half an hour ago."

"Breakfast?"

"Two leftover spring rolls and half a glass of Lambrini."

I grimaced. "That stuff is disgusting, Sirius. And cheap. Can't you treat them to something a little fancier?" Allow me to explain – 'them' would be referring to the various bimbos Sirius likes to pick off the street. Or from work, or a bar – essentially anywhere that will take him. He _tells _me he doesn't deliberately go out looking for sex, and that opportunity tends to just land in his lap (so to speak) but I'm not sure I believe him. The amount of people he has round would suggest at least some effort on his part.

Having said that, if you knew Sirius well you might understand where he comes from. There's something magnetic about him, whether it's the allure of the player or the bug-eyed innocence of the boy within, he knows how to keep people close. I would know; I've been here for a very long time.

Sirius simply stuck his tongue out at me and opened the fridge while I buttered myself some toast. "James, did you eat all the croissants?"

"No," I sighed. "_You_ did. Don't you remember you had half the packet before dinner yesterday?"

"Oh, yeah, so I did."

"Then had dinner, and then ate the other half?" Totally incorrigible.

This seemed to amuse him for a few moments. "Muggle film star or fighter pilot?" He fired off. I was used to these odd Sirius Questions that usually come around the morning.

"Fighter pilot," I answered without looking up from my coffee. But at Sirius' wrinkled nose I wondered if that had been the wrong answer. "You?"

He shrugged. "Film star is much more glamorous."

"Right."

"I could use conditioner."

I raised an eyebrow. "You can use conditioner anyway Sirius, you just have to go and buy it." I, of course, owned my own conditioner, but I get very touchy about Sirius touching my bathing utensils so he's allowed no where near my en suite. He gets everything all _grubby_.

He seemed eager to move the conversation along, in any case. "So," he began, a glint in his eye I didn't like at all as he drank some orange juice from the carton. "You mentioned Evans' name in your sleep last night."

_Shit_. Well, that explains the miserable feeling. "Were you watching me sleep again?" I deflected.

Sirius was unfazed, and simply nodded as he helped himself to leftover takeout from the night before. I wrinkled my nose; was I the only one of us of the opinion that the bachelor didn't _have_ to be totally disgusting? Then again, maybe this is just the Sirius-life where I am simply an unwilling voyeur privy to the inner-workings of his deepest thought processes. Damn, I really need to get my own life. Reckon they sell those at Flourish and Blotts? "From two until four this morning, amigo."

"What about your lady friend?"

"Oh, she was watching too. Although we got bored halfway through, so if you see –"

I held up a hand with a grimace. "I don't want to know. I really, _really_ don't." I took another sip of my coffee and a bite of my toast as Sirius helped himself to a cup, and I checked the time on the pocket watch my parents had bought me on my seventeenth birthday, perpetually kept on our kitchen counter to save me losing it somewhere and Sirius forgetting what day of the week it is. I had plenty of time – a good forty-five minutes before I had to get apparating, which was ample time for a shower and all those other average mundane things people do in the morning that, don't worry, I won't give you a running narration on.

"You said her name all forlorn like. It uh," Sirius' oddly hesitant tone tapped across my consciousness and brought me back to my coffee and the toast I was munching on. "It sounded pretty serious, if you'll pardon the pun." He gave me a look that had me rolling my eyes. "Everything okay with you two?"

I snorted. "We don't exactly meet up for weekly games of pinochle if that's what you mean."

Sirius waved a dismissive hand. "I know, I just – I know she's doing that Healing gig and you've been there a week and haven't mentioned her. I was just wondering."

"Well things are fine," I said quickly. "I mean she's as smoking as she always is, but we're adults and we're getting on with stuff." But we're not friends. She was pretty clear on that, but there was a small barrier that stopped me from adding that on.

A wall that stopped me dipping in the small intimate details of my not-relationship with Lily with Sirius, something that I'm not sure I could explain to you without you knowing the whole story. My relationship with Sirius is... complicated, for want of a better word. It's strong and it's intense, and he's my brother in every possible sense of the word and a constant presence in every single part of my life. Except Lily. Lily Evans was the only place I'd ever put up a wall, where I'd drawn a line and deliberately separated us a long time ago. Unfortunately neither of us are used to dealing with barriers, which always leaves us stumbling uncertainly through conversations about her.

Sirius didn't want to pry because I didn't want to share. Or maybe I didn't want to share because he didn't want to pry.

"The dream sounded..." Sirius tapped his fingers on the side of the counter, not really sure how he should proceed. "You told me you broke up with her for a legitimate reason, and I just want to make sure you meant it." He'd tensed, all pretence of jokes dropped for a moment and I joined him, straightening and clearing my throat.

"I did," I insisted, not looking at him. "I did, and I'm not going back on that, don't worry." There was a hint of sardonicism that I couldn't quite keep out of my tone that I hoped he didn't notice, but he had always been as observant as me, if not more so.

Sirius paused, as if trying to decide what to put to me next. "I know you and I haven't really talked about her since..."

"Since you socked me in the face for dumping her?"

It was spoken as a joke, but there was no humour in his expression. "I just want you to know if there's something bothering you, you can talk to me."

"I know," I reassured him. But I wouldn't. I couldn't. And as I watched his shoulders sag and scratch the back of his neck as I bit into my toast, I had a feeling he knew that. Always the wall.

Instead he stuck on a forced smile and put down his mug. "I'm going for a shower then heading to work."

Thankful for the change of subject that could shift us away from the awkwardness, I called after him. "Don't forget to be glamorous. And buy eggs on your way home." Sirius muttered something that sounded like Over My Dead Booby, which I rolled my eyes at. "And take the piss out of Moody's sexual capabilities for me."

"_Constant impotence_!" He called back over his shoulder at me in an imitation of the cracking voice of his mentor. When a man gets his kicks by beating the crap out of men half his age, you get the feeling he might not be getting much engaging stimulus from elsewhere, if you know what I'm saying.

I think you've been around the pair of us long enough to know what I'm saying.

* * *

When I was a kid, every year my dad used to treat my mother and I to an exotic holiday to somewhere south of the equator via a paid-for two way portkey, and we'd spend the week being treated to the best luxuries a wizard resort could buy. Paid tours around haunted forests, unicorns in petting zoos (for Mum, really) and of course my all time favourite, dragon watching. It was around that time that I learnt two lessons, both important to me in equal measure – the first being the value of money and what money could buy, from my father, and the second being the importance of recognising what you could buy, and what you should. That was from my mother.

Money, being galleons or pounds, was important. Money may not make the world go round, but it did keep it functioning in a perfectly aligned circle. Money, as I found out later, drove people to do things they would otherwise never have considered. Because for some, money was survival.

I was just coming out of that morning's theory session (we were still on the basics, just looking at identifying certain diseases) and it was, for all intents and purposes, lunchtime. Of course lunchtime was a typical ritual in a hospital – the Healers got first shot at food at twelve-thirty, then the Medinurses, then the Mediwizards. Then of course you'd assume the Researchers might come next, but here the janitors and cleaning staff felt like they should exert their authority, and they slid in just before. Once _they_ had all eaten, it was every man for himself with every trainee concerned.

It had only just turned twelve, so needless to say I had a good amount of time to kill before the cafeteria became a no man's land for my colleagues and I, so I did what I'd been doing best for the past week. Picking a random route around the hospital, getting to know it, retracing my steps a few times, then meeting Smethwyck so he could show me to someplace new. Know your terrain, the most important rule of survival – especially when I had so many people to look out for.

Oddly, Hopkins hadn't been taking our seminar this morning, and we'd had the infinitely more lovable Healer Mullins instead – apparently Hop was 'otherwise engaged'. Not that I was complaining. Probably sharpening his cheekbones or something.

But it was as I was picking a random route that I turned a corner and rapidly bumped head first into somebody carrying a few boxes, and they tumbled from their arms; I winced instinctively. The last time I knocked someone in the corridor they'd nearly died, so I was on constant alert.

Luckily, if the next stream of expletives was anything to go on, the other man seemed suitably unharmed. Then I got the surprise of my life.

"_Remus_?" I gaped as I recognised the sandy blonde hair and the world-worn face. I watched as his green eyes filled with recognition, panic, irritation and defensiveness all in one, and although I knew I shouldn't I couldn't stop myself from asking. "What are you doing here?"

Remus Lupin, for those of you who don't know, is one of my closest friends. If my relationship with Sirius is complicated, mine with Remus was heart-warmingly simple. He was my best friend, if you ignore Sirius, and definitely the one I could talk to about anything. He was also notorious for being a completely incapable liar. Which, as you can imagine, was something Sirius and I loved to play with back when we were at school - and it didn't take Nicholas Flamel to look at him now, recognise the white uniform and the yellow armband and know exactly why he was walking through St. Mungo's right at the time I happened to walk into him.

The fool that he was, he figured he could lie his way out of it.

"Oh, you know," he shrugged, and averted his eyes. _Sign number one_. He stacked one of the fallen boxes back onto one of the others. "Just, ah, doing what all normal people do when they go to Mungo's."

"Wrapping yourself in bandages and pretending you're the undead Mungo's Miracle?"

Remus blinked. "... What?"

I forced a laugh. "Patients do the darndest things, don't they?"

"Patients. Right." He looked at me sceptically and I avoided his scrutiny. He doesn't know how _dull_ it gets after rounds sometimes.

"Well, if not that," I hurried to move him on. "What _are_ you doing here?"

"I was just visiting someone."

I was careful to keep my expression neutral, as if I were considering this as a possibility. "Who?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in a way I'm sure he realised meant he wasn't fooling anyone for a second. "Maybe I'll see them in rounds after lunch."

His breathing accelerated slightly. _Sign number two_. "Just an old family friend. No one important - I actually better go check up on them. We'll go out for drinks soon, yeah?" He picked up his last box and made to push past me hurriedly, but I stopped him.

"Then what are the boxes for?" He opened his mouth to lie almost equally awfully, but seemed to change his mind and sighed. Giving up. _Sign number three_. "You are wearing the uniform," I pointed out and he gave the yellow armband a scathing look. "How long have you been here?" If you haven't caught on or don't remember, yellow signifies Support Staff. Janitors, gift shop attendants, tea room waiters and waitresses, all round helpfulness - and, what was bewildering me the most, far above what Remus Lupin was capable of. I may be biased because he was one of my best friends, but he is _incredible_. Very smart, he almost did as well as me in his NEWTs. (I can't hold the almost against him, really. I'm basically a genius.)

His guilty expression suggested longer than at least a few days, and I rephrased my question. "How long did you think you could hide it?"

"That all I could scrounge three months after graduation was a cleaning job in the very hospital my best friend will soon be a fully trained Healer at? For the sake of my pride, I was planning on hiding it forever."

I didn't quite know how to respond to that (how _do_ you respond when people talk about how much their lives suck?) so I instead curiously lifted the lid of one of the boxes - containing breath mints and chocolate, of all things.

"What about that Flourish and Blotts thing? They wanted you for a second interview, right?"

Remus sighed. "As soon as she asked the first question I knew I didn't have it. _How does your lycanthropy affect your ability to work?_" He imitated the store manager in a scratchy high tone and I grimaced. And there it is, folks. Remus Lupin, my best friend, was a werewolf.

It's a long and boring story that I won't bother you with the details of, but suffice to say the ending is the most important part - after some rather sketchy politics between his father and a notoriously savage lycanthrope, Fenrir Greyback, a six-year-old Remus was admitted to Mungo's with near fatal bite marks. The Healers did all they could, but some wounds couldn't be healed by wands and potions.

He was registered, as all werewolves are, which is as good as sticking a huge neon sign onto his forehead saying _WEREWOLF_, and something he'll never be able to escape. Exam papers, apparation certificates, job applications, you name it; the big ol' stamp is there. Which, as he tells us, is what makes finding a job so difficult. Why hire someone who is afflicted and needs time off once a month when there are many perfectly normal wizards out there to hire instead?

So that little stamp on his forehead actually says _HIRE ME NOT, FRIEND ME NOT, ASSOCIATE WITH ME NOT, AND CERTAINLY DON'T ALLOW ME TO QUALIFY FOR UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS_. But I'm pretty sure that didn't fit. 'Werewolf' basically covers it.

Of course we, being Sirius, my fourth best friend Peter and I, have absolutely no trouble with his affliction. We worked it out in second year - well, I worked it out. Like I say, I'm the genius. They helped a bit, I suppose. Moral support and such. Sirius brought the snacks; Peter brought the comic relief, etc., and he was scared to realise we were onto him, but we paid it little mind. Remus was Remus. Sweet and simple.

"Well she's the one missing out," I declared. "You would have worked your _arse_ off in Blotts, and now she's not going to have you."

He offered me a weak smile. "Touching as that is, James, I'm the one missing out. I don't qualify for unemployment benefits, remember?" He shifted the weight of the boxes. "Don't really know what they expected me to do instead when I couldn't survive. Run off into the wilderness sing the song of my people?" He spoke with the familiar resignation I'd become accustomed to when it came to werewolf rights, and I sighed.

"Listen, come have lunch with me – you can tell me all about it."

And I thought, with a sprinkle of optimism, that did mean I could sneak in early with the Support Staff for the lunchtime ritual. _James: 1, Other Trainees: 0_.

* * *

As an adult, life isn't as easy to hold together as you think it will be. Of course my three best friends from school – Sirius, Remus and Peter – figured we'd be in touch every week, every _day_, even, being as much a part of each other's lives as we had been when we shared a castle, but life has a funny way of working out. Much to our chagrin we actually seemed to have split in two, with Sirius and I moving into one flat and Remus and Peter into another, and we didn't cross over and see each other nearly as much as we'd hoped. Sitting down to lunch with Remus actually reminded me that it had been at least a month since I'd last seen him in person, and that horrified me.

See, there's a long purgatory-like adjustment period where you work out what kind of adult you're going to be, and I was just emerging from it – I was going to work hard, live with Sirius and write home to my mother at any available opportunity. Sirius was going to live hard, party hard and periodically stab voodoo dolls representing his parents and younger brother. Remus, on the other hand, hadn't quite gotten on his feet.

He told me he'd been spending months trying to get a job, and had been living off of Peter's meagre earnings from the Leaky Cauldron (where he was employed as a waiter) until he could sort himself out. This horrified me as I'm sure it would have Sirius – while we were living the high life with our apartment on Old Compton, here our two best friends had been struggling to pay rent.

"Why didn't you ask us for help?" I'd asked, totally bewildered by this new information.

Remus had shrugged and stirred his tea guiltily, casting a scathing look at the yellow armband that cited him as a janitor resting on the table. "I'm embarrassed, James, we both are. You've both stumbled into the perfect jobs and have money coming out of your ears, we don't want to be asking you for help for the rest of our lives."

"But – "

"Just because our standard of living might be a bit lower than yours doesn't mean we need help," he insisted firmly. "The point is we're making it on what we're earning, and things should be a lot easier now I've got this Mungo's job."

Technically they weren't supposed to be hiring new Support Staff around that time, but apparently Remus had pleaded his case with one of the higher ranking Healers who – luckily – seemed to be a werewolf sympathizer and had managed to squeeze him in and get him started this very morning.

Selfishly, I was kind of pleased. As mature as I liked to act, I was almost bursting with joy at the notion of being able to see him almost every day at work even if he was less than thrilled that his almost straight O record could only get him a menial maintenance job. I'm a selfish man, but I was also determined to make Remus' time at St. Mungo's the very best it could be, and promised to keep helping him move up and on to the better things that he _should_ be doing.

With a promise to come find him after rounds and a reminder that he should keep an eye out for Lily (the two of them were still good friends, which was more than could be said for _me_ and her) I left the cafeteria to get back to what I should be doing. Still, that didn't quite stop me thinking about it – did Sirius and I really project such easy confidence in our new lives that our _best friends_ felt like they couldn't intrude and ask us for help? Something about that seemed terribly, terribly wrong. We figured it'd all be so easy the moment Hogwarts was over, but maybe only now was I beginning to realise just how wrong we were.

Somebody snapped their fingers in front of my face and I was jerked back to reality, realising with dull resignation that Hopkins was in charge of rounds today.

"Eyes front, Potter," I was used to this favourite catchphrase of his, "you can daydream about your boyfriend when we don't have work to do." I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at his demeanour, always making up shit I wasn't doing. I spared Lily a glance but she was paying us no mind, examining the patient in front of us with a practiced indifference. By now I was pretty everyone in our little group was aware that Hopkins had it out for me.

Prat.

"Welcome to the Milo Onglin ward of Magical Bugs and Ailments, as per your lecture this morning we will be spending today looking at identifying the most obvious of diseases," he moved away from me and I put my clipboard under one arm and manoeuvred myself around the bed so I was standing next to Smethwyck.

"Where were you at lunch today?" He whispered.

"Catching up with a good friend. Listen, I have a question - muggle film star or fighter pilot?"

Smethwyck looked at me like I was crazy. "Fighter pilot," he responded and I was reassured. I was concerned about Sirius' lack of interest in the fighter pilot idea - film stars didn't get to fight for the greater good. And they had huge hair. And lots of dogs. And adoring fans. And I was struggling to find a negative argument.

I nodded and ended the conversation there before Hopkins saw it fit to tear out my tongue. The Healer-in-Charge was busy pointing out the patient to us, an old Mr. Jacobs who was looking up at us faintly, coughing every few minutes while a Medinurse helped him to some water. From my own knowledge growing up in a wizarding family I could tell the greenish tinge to his skin meant the man probably had a poor case of dragon pox, something I'd seen my mother come down with once.

She'd been quarantined to her room and my father had forbidden me from going to see her because apparently it was highly contagious. As it was, I could feel the tingle of a ward surrounding Mr. Jacobs' bed which suggested a whole other kind of magical quarantine to me that would stop the disease spreading to other patients on the ward.

"Potter, since you're feeling pretty chatty today –" So he _had_ noticed, "could you tell me, as per your seminar this morning, why Mr. Jacobs hasn't been diagnosed with spattergroit?"

I thought back quickly to the lecture and tried to remember the key symptoms of spattergroit. "Uh, no blisters?" Mr. Jacobs shot me an indignant look and I winced apologetically after I spotted the spots all over his skin. "I mean, no purple spots. Spattergroit is known to cause large purple blisters all over the skin full of a pus that seems to be the cause for the contagiousness of it."

Hopkins nodded. "Good. Spattergroit, caused by the fungus cantharellaceae spattigus – incidentally where the name is derived from – would leave most patients bedridden with extreme fatigue, swelling and the identifiable purple pustules all over the body. Given that Mr. Jacobs fortunately possesses none of these, he doesn't have spattergroit."

Mr. Jacobs, old and out of it as he looked, raised an eyebrow at Hop. I imagined him saying _tell me something I don't know, asshole_. Maybe without the asshole part.

"Given the state of his skin at the moment then, what disease _would_ we diagnose Mr. Jacobs with," he paused, choosing a victim before turning back to Mr. Jacobs. "Miss Evans?"

Lily, standing just next to me blinked and I knew it was unfair – we hadn't covered dragon pox in the lecture that morning and Hopkins probably knew that. For all her reading ahead, the deer-in-headlights look in her eyes suggested to me she didn't know the answer.

"Dragon pox," I whispered as subtly as I could.

"Dragon pox?" She repeated louder, and Hopkins turned back to us with the corner of his mouth curved up in half a grin.

"Very good, Miss Evans. And what tells us Mr. Jacobs has dragon pox – Mr. White?"

Eddie, the 30-year-old trainee, had the advantage of experience. "The greenish tinge to his skin and the reddish spots all over him – which are probably very itchy." Mr. Jacobs groaned in agreement and we all suppressed a chuckle.

Hopkins even allowed himself the tiniest snort of laughter. "Well, that's quite enough from you. We'll probably come back to see you later Mr. Jacobs, don't wander off." As if he could, I thought, he looked barely likely to lift a finger let alone himself. "And don't _scratch_," Hopkins insisted. "You'll ruin that pretty face." With a whistle he clicked his fingers and the six of us fell into step behind him, heading to the next patient.

Lily turned round at the moment and surveyed me with a measured wariness, but nodded. "Thanks."

"No problem," I chirped, and tried to stop the sensation of my stomach flipping over. Bloody hell, I have _got_ to get a hold of myself. What in Merlin's name was wrong with me?

Rounds tend to continue in this fashion for the next hour or so – our accompanying Healer taking us from bed to bed and widening our knowledge on whatever we'd been learning about in the lectures that morning. Diligently we'd take down notes as if our lives depended on it, then go home and work intensively hard at making sure all the extra information went in. There were midterm exams and all sorts to look forward to. Kind of like Hogwarts, but about fifty times more difficult and lives _depended _on you knowing your stuff.

Hopkins finished off after being suitably irritated by a particularly chatty patient diagnosed with Ridley Fever, an illness that caused the odd convulsion but mostly just left you lightheaded and heady for the duration of the sickness – stuck on cloud nine, as it were.

"You did alright today, children. Now run along and make sure you do your homework – and for Merlin's sake play nice with the other kids." I actually caught him throwing a non-too-discreet look in Smethwyck's direction, who withered under the scrutiny. That irritated me; it wasn't _Hippo's_ fault that Healers saw it fit to take out their frustrations on him. "Although Potter, Miss Evans – if you two could stay behind for a minute, please."

We paused uncertainly and looked at each other. Burning hatred or not, where Hopkins was concerned it was important to show solidarity as trainees.

"Don't look so excited," Hopkins chastised as he motioned for us to follow him. "You're in trouble."

I swallowed nervously and started walking behind him, and I could tell Lily was equally wracking her brains trying to think of whatever we'd done that might have made him angry – I thought about the whispered answer earlier and wondered if maybe he'd noticed and that had been the wrong thing to do.

"I swear, if helping you with the answers is going to get me in trouble all the time, you're on your own," I muttered to her, a grin tugging at my features.

She was indignant. "I didn't need _help_," she insisted. "I was just... thinking."

"Uh huh."

"I _was_."

"Absolutely, I'm sure you were."

She continued to throw me an irritated glare before softening, and conceding. "Maybe I needed a bit of help," I grinned triumphantly and she saw. "But don't let that go to your head."

I held a wounded hand to my chest. "That assumption hurts me."

"Seriously, James. I've heard Hopkins' office is small, we won't all fit if you don't stamp on your ego a bit."

I laughed and she chuckled before frowning and stopping herself, morphing her expression into something more neutral. She probably remembered that right now she hates me and we're not friends, but I was feeling a little more optimistic – she couldn't fight nature forever, after all. I may have been a dick to her, but we were _born_ to get along.

Sort of.

Hopkins' office was everything I imagined it would be – scruffy, disorganised and about as inviting as a hippogriff's talons. As Lily and I stood awkwardly in the centre he made to shift papers around so we could sit down in the only two chairs opposite his desk, but seemed to change his mind halfway through and left us to stand. Paperwork was stacked from floor to ceiling and it was here I met my first reality check when it came to life as a Healer. You spent more time writing about treating your patients than actually treating them.

The room was small and square and an enchanted fan in the corner of the room was the only thing stopping the cramped space from overheating, but also served to be annoying for the odd roll of parchment sent billowing across to the other end of the office. I was the victim of one such parchment (a treatment report for a Miss Danielle Gordon) and I deposited it awkwardly on the end of Hopkins' desk. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say Hopkins spent far more time outside of his office than in it, or he just did everything within his power to avoid cleaning it.

"So," his sharp voice cut across ours as he sat behind his desk and put his feet up. "I presume you both know why you're here?" Lily and I glanced at each other, both shaking our heads in confusion. Hopkins sighed, as if he might have predicted this. He folded his hands over his stomach and looked up at us. "Last week I taught you your first and most important lesson about working at St. Mungo's. Could either of you remind me what that was?"

"Don't piss you off?" I offered airily.

Lily shot me a glare. "Don't be late?"

Hopkins conceded with a tilt of his head, but shook it. "Both valuable lessons, but not the most important," from there we both drew a blank. "No? Let me remind you; _don't touch the patients_. Without direct supervision."

And suddenly flashes of a man in a dressing gown came flying back to me, and I knew immediately what this was about.

"I was informed this morning by a helpful Medinurse about a certain misdemeanour last week involving a patient fainting and a rather sloppily cast resuscitation spell that I understand is down to the pair of you?"

Now that I couldn't just let slide. "With all due respect, sir, Lily saved his life –"

"Was I or any other Healer supervising you?" He ignored and cut across me. The answer was a reluctant shake of the head from us both. "Should you have touched the patient?"

"I knew what I was doing," Lily insisted with an indignant edge to her voice, "it wasn't a problem."

Hopkins was totally unconvinced, and pulled his feet from where they'd been resting on the desk and the previous jovial demeanour had completely vanished as he set steely eyes on us. I had this sudden urge to run and leave a James shaped hole in the side of his incredibly warm office. "And what if you'd gotten it wrong, hm?" He directed to Lily. "What if instead of kick starting his heart you managed to push it straight into his sternum and give him such a drastic internal haemorrhage that he would never be able to recover from it?"

Lily blinked. "But I didn't –"

"You can't _honestly _tell me, Miss Evans, that not at one moment did you consider that you might fuck up and kill the man?"

This she couldn't deny, and her gaze dropping to the ground was all the proof that Hopkins needed, and I felt so indignant and defensive on her part that I just wanted to strangle the Healer-in-Charge and make a _Hopkins_ shaped hole in the wall of his incredibly warm office.

"At Hogwarts they always taught us that application of knowledge is always just as important as –"

"At _Hogwarts_?" Hopkins cried incredulously, standing abruptly and slamming his fist onto the desk with such force that we both jumped. "Potter, if you want to do things the school way then we can _do_ them the school way. I can give you both a _detention_ and you can spend every moment of your free time for the next year cataloguing the contents of the entire store cupboard if you don't take this lesson to heart. Do I make myself clear?" Our silence was defiant and mutinous. "Do I?"

Lily cleared her throat. "So... the next time we see a man start to die, you expect us to stand there and do nothing?"

Hopkins nodded gravely. "That's exactly what I expect you to do."

I was still frustrated with this turn of events and apparent admonishment for preserving life; it didn't feel _right_ in any way, and I hated it. "What if we're the only ones who can make a sliver of difference between whether a man lives or dies?" I asked incredulously. "Shouldn't we try it? Isn't it worth the risk?"

The Healer surveyed me, and in his grey eyes I could very suddenly see the weight of a hundred deaths, a thousand deaths, and a man inside who'd become hardened to the idea of it. "No," he said quietly, determinedly, and the power in his voice kept me from voicing another protest. "It isn't."

Unsure where that left us, I snuck a glance at Lily who I realised late was doing the exact same thing to me.

Hopkins turned away.

"Dismissed."

* * *

Lily and I had stood awkwardly outside of his office for a few moments still reeling from the encounter a little bit. I wondered if I should say something, offer some vague notion of comfort that she _had_ done the right thing – I was sure of it. If that man had died we would never have forgiven ourselves, regardless of whatever Hopkins seemed to believe.

Before I had the chance to say anything, though, Lily did one of the most incredible things I've ever seen her do to date – after a brisk accepting nod at me, perhaps a recognition that we were in that together, she brushed some invisible dust from her white robe and started to walk down the corridor, head held high. Every bit as proud and as sure of herself as when she went in, not a regret to be found. Needless to say her steely resolve was something I admired, although there were a _lot_ of things I admired about Lily Evans.

... I really had to stop those sporadic complimentary thoughts. I'm not supposed to even _like_ her.

I had around an hour to kill before my shift started and I found a fully trained Healer to follow around and help out (Don't Touch The Patients Without Supervision Blah Blah) and I thought about wandering off to try and find Remus. He was probably working though, and Hopkins' admonishment had left me in a glum mood, so I wasn't really in the mood for talking.

I stared after where Lily had gone and sighed. I was a complete mess.

It were as if this past week every single feeling I'd tried to forget or bury over the past three months had suddenly been set on fire, burning underneath my skin and in every part of me and screaming to just be with her again. We'd broken up at my request, under my own terms – and yet here I was, just as stupidly enamoured as I had been for the past however many years. It seemed silly, and damn right hypocritical, to break her heart and then decide I want her again. I couldn't let myself do that.

Sirius' concern from that morning sprung to the front of my mind, and I decided wryly maybe he did have a reason to be worried. Lily was his friend and he wanted to make sure I didn't screw her over again – deciding I wanted to date her was a sure fire way of that happening, but around her I just couldn't help myself. It was like swimming against the tide; I'm _used _to the flirting and the joking, so much so that I'm not sure I even possess an off switch for it. Which of course irritated her to no end.

Then of course there was Lily herself. I had to imagine this from her perspective – I chased after her for three years, dated her for five months and then dumped her. Then didn't speak to her for three months, then when we finally met again I decided to act like everything was hunky dory and joke around with her just like I always did. Like nothing had ever happened. I'd built distance between us and then decided to pretend it didn't exist. Not to mention I was somewhat accidentally stumbling through a revival of my affection for her. She was just so goddamn amazing that I couldn't _help_ it – and everything she did seemed to remind me of that.

Why was I such an _ass_?

I had to squash any vestigial feelings for her before I let them grow. On the first day I saw her I panicked and had a fleeting thought that maybe this had all been some huge mistake on my part, but my conscious thought regained control soon enough – my mind knew better. Like I told Sirius that morning, I broke up with her for a legitimate reason and I was going to stick to that. Maybe one day I'll tell you what it was.

Lily Evans and I were done, and I had to accept that. Merlin knew she already had.

I realised I'd reached the locker room in my wanderings which pulled me from my thoughts – this was where we kept things like our bags during the day. I also left most of my textbooks here because I had a feeling Sirius might use them for dinner plates if I took them home with me. I still had time to waste, so I figured I'd do a little extra studying.

I pulled my wand from my pocket and unlocked mine, but before I could reach and get anything out, something floated down from the top and caught my eye. Curiously, I picked it up to examine.

It was a single orange feather, and with it there was a note attached written in a tidy, looping scrawl.

_"You have been marked. You are being watched.  
Tell no one."_

At first I assumed it was a prank – something some of the other Healers would undoubtedly find hilarious, but there was something decidedly ominous about it that suggested a much deeper seriousness. Maybe I really was a muggle film star and this was simply a note from the endless papparazzi that followed me around. Although maybe I should just keep the fighter pilot head on as this actually seemed worrying. I looked around, but was just as alone in the locker room as when I had entered. I had a bad feeling about this.

The feather, too – which I surmised to be of that belonging to a phoenix, spoke volumes. I had heard things, everyone had; whispers, rumours, hushed tones and a smattering of cautious looks all speaking of a mysterious phoenix who worked in the shadows. Rebels against an ever darkening regime, but nothing had ever been substantiated. There was absolutely no reason to believe that any such underground group, or even a single person, existed.

Except the note and feather I clutched in one hand.

I swallowed and put it back inside, shutting the locker with a decided _clunk_. I wasn't sure I wanted anything to do with rumours and whispers, and I hated even more the idea of something staring at me from the shadows – more likely than not it was probably a hoax from one of the other Healers. I'd do well asking Smethwyck if he'd received any other such note since I could confide in him rather than letting anyone think it had gotten to me. I wasn't interested in feeding the Mungo's rumour mill.

And yet; there was something dark about it, and my instincts trusted its genuineness.

Deciding to forget the whole incident and head back early onto my shift, I turned around but the door to the locker room opened before I'd even made it five feet. Normally I wouldn't have been perturbed by this, but the two men that stepped inside the room were alarmingly familiar – the two Healers I'd caught giving Smethwyck what for in the store cupboard last week.

It took only seconds for the first to recognise me, check the rest of the room and realise we were alone. His face lit up in a wicked grin. Two on one.

"Now don't these odds look familiar?"

* * *

**All done for chapter two! People have requested flashbacks to James and Lily's breakup, and I've written out 10 chronologically I'll be sticking in the story at random times. The one at the start is chronologically the seventh. There'll also be a lot more Lily coming up soon, so not to worry about that. Also, I'm no doctor haha! So if it shows, I do apologise. :') I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one!**

**Reviews are like Agrippa to Ron's wizard card collection, **

**~MyWhitelighter**


	3. Bad Shituation

**So here is chapter three! I hope it's alright! Just a reminder about the whole flashback situation as this chapter contains two - I have ten flashbacks written chronologically, and the flashbacks in this chapter are chronologically****the 5th and the 3rd. So bear in mind the first flashback actually comes after the second. That said, happy reading all!**

* * *

_I should be over all the butterflies_  
_but I'm into you (I'm into you)_  
_and baby even on our worst nights_  
_I'm into you (I'm into you)_

- Paramore

* * *

**Chapter Three: Bad Shituation**

_It took only seconds for the first Healer who walked in to recognise me, check the rest of the room and realise we were alone. His face lit up in a wicked grin. Two on one._

_"Now don't these odds look familiar?"_

"Well, if it isn't my two favourite gents?" I replied instantly with a warm smile. Their grins didn't quite share the same warmth and I decided it was time I changed my tune and quickly scarpered. "Well, been good catching up." I made to move past the one closest to me, but an arm slammed into the locker beside us, blocking my path.

He chuckled. "See, I don't really feel like letting you go just yet – what about you, Ter?" He shot over his shoulder at the second, who built himself up to his full height and stared me straight in the eye. They were burlier than me, sure, more well built whereas my form was more refined through hours playing Quidditch (yes, readers, _hours_), but the way they were trying to intimidate me showed they clearly had me mistaken for someone else.

My eyes hardened.

"I'm not Hippocrates Smethwyck," I said in a low voice, "and considering how unexcited I am to see you both, that's definitely a wand in my pocket."

"Funny man, eh?" The first one laughed, although the humour was lost on me.

For some reason, the whole notion of them cornering me was just so infuriating. I hadn't had to put up with this kind of crap since I was thirteen, and Antonin Dolohov and his gang were just finishing up their last year at Hogwarts. Being friends with Sirius we were easy pickings for the significantly older and more magically adept seventh years, all of whom held a grudge against the black sheep of their corner of school. Life at Hogwarts was like a war before they left, looking over your shoulder every day and taking shortcuts wherever we could – that was why we ended up knowing our way around the school. Every passageway, every secret corridor; we'd used it.

Since then? I'd become_ James Fucking Potter_. And the only people dumb enough to try and intimidate a Marauder had to be dafter than Sinatra in her worst mood-swinging, sandwich-flinging prediction-spouting tantrum.

"Get out of my way," I growled, "or you'll regret it."

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a wand sliding out of Ter's pocket, but my own was out a second sooner and a loud bang accompanied the nonverbal spell I used to send him flying back into the lockers behind him.

The unnamed one, however, hadn't even drawn his – the moment mine was out and my attention was diverted he'd lunged forward and clamped one hand around my wrist, squeezing tightly, and used the other to trap my left arm behind his back. I hadn't been expecting a physical assault and cried out, even as his hand continued to squeeze. It got so painful that I dropped my wand and he let out a triumphant grunt but didn't let up, twisting my arm so tight into me that I was seeing stars.

Ter had gotten up from where he'd been thrown backwards and picked up my wand, turning it on me as he panted heavily.

I struggled against the unnamed one, but his grip was like iron and totally unrelenting. The helpless feeling rose pulsed through my chest and threw me into a suffocating panic unlike anything I'd felt since I was thirteen.

I was James Fucking Potter, and it meant jack shit to this hospital.

"I'm Juno Scott," the unnamed Healer hissed in my ear even as I gasped from the pain. "Look me up before you go getting between us and Smethwyck again."

I was about to spit out some sort of response, but I could see what was going to happen before it'd even started – Ter's fist drew back and connected with my temple, and the last thing I remembered before total darkness was the taste of blood on my tongue and the feel of it dribbling down my chin.

* * *

**Flashback #5**

I was supposed to be studying, really I was – and Remus was supposed to be helping me. NEWTs were just around the corner and following them, graduation, so the collapse of my parents' marriage really should've been the last thing on my mind. I had everything worked out; a job application, the perfect girlfriend, on course for straight O's. What in Merlin's name did I have to be broody about? But still, I sat and stared out the window feeling low and melancholy, watching dots of rain strike the window as the atmosphere braced for the storm that would be upon us before the evening was out.

"I don't think love exists," I finally blurted out. Remus looked up from the book he'd been taking notes from, and I could see he immediately didn't think I was being serious. I wasn't entirely sure what had driven me to say it, but something became abundantly clear the moment it was out of my mouth.

I believed it.

"Are you completing those notes on Amortentia that I told you to? Because that isn't real love." He reached over to the bowl of Jelly Slugs we kept just for studying. He was eyeing me curiously though, probably trying to gauge if I was being serious.

I pushed my textbook (my Transfiguration textbook) away from me with a sigh. "No."

Remus chewed slowly, clearly waiting for me to say something else.

"I mean I guess it's like Amortentia, isn't it? But it's done by yourself. Kind of like a self-induced hypnosis," I waved a hand, trying to articulate what I was feeling into words. "You basically project unrealistic qualities onto another person. You view the person in the way you want to view them and discard their flaws." _I've been putting Evans on a pedestal for years_, I thought. _Maybe I'm fooling her as much as I'm fooling myself_.

I could see he was realising this was somewhat more than idle musings, or maybe he could just identify my crisis of faith. "I'm not sure you discard the flaws totally," he said cautiously. "Perhaps love is instead accepting and looking past them rather than pretending they don't exist."

"I can't name a single flaw in Lily Evans."

Remus paused. "Not even her temper?"

"Not even that." I shook my head and turned back to the window, the raindrops increasing in speed as they struck against it.

"I'm not sure how that justifies the nonexistence of love," he picked up his quill again and jotted a few things down. I reached for a Jelly Slug and bit its head off. There was an element of frustration in my movements that he didn't seem aware of – like every little niggling feeling under the surface that I'd had for the past month was coming to a head.

I hesitated. "Well the way I see it, you create an image of the perfect person in your mind and expect them to adhere to that image for the rest of their lives. That can't be love, can it? That expectation?"

He put his quill down again and turned to me, looking me straight in the eye.

He hesitated, as if wondering how to continue. "Is this about what's happened to your parents, James?" I looked away, but said nothing. "I'm sorry about them, truly I am, but you can't let their mistakes dictate how you spend the rest of your life." His amber eyes were totally steeled, unrelenting, and part of me wondered if he'd been expecting this conversation. Thinking about it he was easily the closest to Lily out of all the people I knew – maybe he was aware of how little we'd been talking to each other recently, the steady decline of _us_.

"I did speak to my mum," I doodled something unidentifiable on the parchment. "And my dad."

"And?"

A familiar rage settled in the middle of my chest like a dead weight, crawling up my throat and almost choking me. "And he said there's a difference between 'making love and making love matter'," I spat, realising I'd pressed a little too hard into my parchment as it tore underneath the pressure of my quill.

"James," Remus placed a gentle hand on my arm which I know was meant to soothe me, but instead became an outlet for some of the bubbled up frustration at my father's actions and I shook it off roughly, pushing back from the table and standing. "What you and Lily have is... it's different from that. It's better."

"I love her," I muttered, not even embarrassed by the admission – I'd been saying it for years. I paced across the Head's dorms to the fireplace but wasn't sure what to do once I got there and turned back around to my friend. "I _love_ her. I'm in love with her." I threw my hands up in frustration. "What the fuck does that even _mean_?"

Remus folded his hands in his lap and contemplated his answer. I didn't bother letting him.

"What's it going to mean in ten years time, hm? Will I decide she's not the same girl she used to be and throw her under a bus? Sure, I care about her now, she's flawless now, but in ten years? What in Godric's name will my love amount to then?" I was well aware I was barely making sense, but there had to be some kind of coherence to all that was going on in my mind. There _had_ to be.

"You're not your dad, James."

His voice was quiet but forceful, commanding, intended to remind me of something I had apparently forgotten. I cared very little for it.

"Aren't I?"

I dropped down into one of the plush armchairs surrounding the fire and buried my face in my hands. I heard Remus get up and sit in the chair across from me, but I didn't look up. I was so fucking miserable I didn't know what to do with myself, or where to channel all the negative feelings.

After a moment, he piped up again. "What about your mother? What did she have to say about the whole business?"

My heart clenched painfully and ached, and I squeezed my eyes shut tighter even beneath my hands. My voice was muffled behind them, but I'm sure he could still hear the crack in my voice. "That it's hard to be a Potter."

"James –"

"I'm just like him, Remus," I whispered. "I'm _exactly_ like him. People have spent their lives telling me how much alike we are."

Remus said nothing, but I felt a hand reach out and rest on my shoulder, and this time I took strength from the contact and leaned into it ever so slightly.

"And he loved her once, too. Or he thought he did."

At this point I could feel a humiliating wetness behind my eyes that I tried to brush away before he noticed – he did, I'm sure, but he didn't comment and I thanked all the magic in the world that had led Remus to be one of my closest friends.

"Whatever you want, whatever you decide," he started hesitantly, "I'm going to support you no matter what you do. But James, I _know_ you would never do the kind of things he did, believe me – and I urge you, no matter what, to not make any decisions about you and Lily based on the decisions your father made about your mother."

I couldn't even form a response, as lost as I was.

"And you need to talk to her," this he spoke with more conviction, probably stemmed from a longstanding friendship with the girl in question. "Things can't go on like this."

I felt him perch on the arm of my chair and put his arm around me, and I let him. I tucked myself into the comfort radiating from him and did my best to believe in every word he said. I tried; sweet Merlin I _tried_.

But I couldn't.

* * *

**Present**

I awoke to the sound of my name and the sensation of someone shaking my shoulder, and that was before the weight of the pain I was experiencing came crashing onto me. My nose ached. My stomach ached. My arm ached. Everything ached. My _hair_ ached. And when I realised who it was who was crouched over me, my pride started to ache too.

It was like an apparition, something plucked straight from my dreams as Lily Evans sat on her haunches, saying my name with increasing volume as she brushed a strand of auburn hair behind her ear.

"_James_."

Her eyes glowed like the charmed emeralds my mother had once shown me in the basement of her house. A dash of colour in an ever paling existence, the personification of beauty and wonder, a sparkle of life.

"James I know you're awake, now get the hell up!"

... What in Merlin's name was I even saying anymore?

"Lily, you came," I murmured groggily, using the bench beside me to sit upright and wincing at the jolt of agony it sent through my side right up to my skull. It all came rushing back as I realised I must've passed out on the floor of the locker room. Hilariously, I could see Lily awkwardly balancing to avoid touching any of my blood that seemed to be covering the floor – for a would be Healer she can be rather squeamish about that sort of thing.

She ignored me. "You look like hell."

"You should've seen the other guy," I tried a grin, but it hurt my face. Weren't smiles supposed to use less muscle than frowns? Wasn't that a thing? My vision blurred and I wobbled dangerously.

"Hold still, I can do something for the dizziness," I could vaguely see her take her wand from her pocket and mutter an incantation, and like a receding shadow my head cleared and I felt significantly better. The pain was all still there, but I could certainly get my bearings a lot easier.

And remember the pricks that put me here.

"We're supposed to be on shift with Healer Walton. When you didn't show I thought I better make sure you hadn't," she cut herself off, shutting her mouth and seemingly rethinking the end of the statement, "gotten anyone into trouble."

"The only person I'm getting in trouble is me," I groaned, feeling a vein pulse in the side of my head when I thought about them. Juno Scott was the last thing I remembered. I was going to kill him. With fists. And hockey sticks. And emeralds. Hm?

She helped me off the ground and sat me down on the bench. "Makes a change. Where's your wand?"

I looked around. "I have no idea." She spotted it resting a few feet away and handed it to me. At this point I was becoming more aware and realised that she hated me, so this whole set up must have been a bit awkward for her. I was about to open my mouth to give her some sort of dismissal, but my distraction in touching the dried blood on the side of my head and my teeth was all the time she needed to make a decision, apparently.

"If you show up looking like this Walton will kill me," she justified her actions as she knelt in front of me.

"You don't have to do anything," I said.

She grabbed my chin rather forcefully and pointed her wand at my nose. "This is going to feel strange. _Episkey._"

Something clicked uncomfortably on my face as my nose shifted back into place and I cringed.

"So what happened?"

I shrugged. "You know me. Love sticking my nose where it doesn't belong. Some guys just get so defensive about the contents of their lockers."

Lily accepted the explanation, but I knew she didn't believe it. The girl _knew_ me, what can I say?

"I don't know anything for your head," she admitted with an almost apologetic look. Well, I would've thought it was apologetic if I didn't already know she hated me. Lily Evans hates James Potter. Hates hates hates. No sympathy for hateish people. "But I can bandage it up until we get you to a Medinurse."

All too suddenly she'd conjured a bandage and her fingers were lightly touching my head as she wrapped it around. They were Healer's hands; soft and welcoming, reassuring only through one tiny bit of skin to skin contact. It was then that I realised she could've just taken me to a Medinurse straight away – but likely she realised these were like the kinds of injuries I would hide from Madame Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing back at school. I didn't want anyone else involved. Instantly I felt a rush of affection for her understanding that without me needing to say anything, and I once again cursed myself and everything that I am that I'd let this woman go.

"Lily," I don't know what made me say it, and I hated myself for the weakness I could hear in the tone. I hated myself for even _speaking_. Why were Potters born with mouths? I could hear her expectant reply without her needing to say anything. "I hate this," I muttered, "all of this. I miss you."

"James," she warned, not looking at me as she stood up to get a better angle to wrap my head from.

"Before I screwed everything up you were my best friend." Stop talking, James, STOP. "And I miss that." I stared at her abdomen in front of me as if might hold all the answers.

"Let's see, shall we?" she said more forcefully. "You pursued me for three years, against my will, and then when I finally gave in and gave you a chance you dated me for a meagre five months before dumping me. Then you made out with my best friend less than a week later. I'd say that's screwing things up pretty badly, yes." She abruptly pulled the bandage tighter and I hissed in pain. "Sorry," she murmured.

I shook my head, but it hurt and she grunted in annoyance so I stopped. "No," I sighed. "_I'm_ sorry. I did screw up. Big time. I hurt you and you deserve more than... all that." I played with my hands in my lap and felt like a little boy again. "Even if we're never friends again, Lily, I just want you to know I really am sorry. If I could go back and do things differently, you have to know I would." She paused what she was doing and I looked up at her, willing her to see how earnest I was being.

I put the jokes down. This wasn't the place for jokes. Her eyes, bright green like a cat's, gave nothing away. She resumed what she was doing.

"You know what the worst thing is, James? The thing that hurt the _most_?" I could hear her talking through gritted teeth and my heart clenched; I almost didn't want to know, but every masochistic part of me was so tuned in to what she was saying. I wanted to be sick. "You're still _you_. You haven't changed or become a different person. You're still the person –" pause, as she wrapped the bandage, "- who accepted Peter Pettigrew when no one else would. Who intervened when Mary Macdonald was hit with the Cruciatus curse. The same man who defended Snape from his own friends."

I couldn't think of what to say to that. "Friend," I corrected stupidly.

"Sirius," she agreed grimly. Sirius was always the one who never let it go with Snape. "_God_ James, you can be an ass to me but I know you'll still go out on a limb for everyone else and that really – _fucking_ – sucks." She finished wrapping my head and tied a knot at the end. "Does that feel tight enough?"

I ignored her; this was the first honest conversation we'd had in months. "How do you know I haven't just changed and become an asshole?" The person I felt like today didn't feel like the person who did all those things. He felt like a complete stranger.

She took a moment before replying, leaving me where I was sitting and heading to her locker. I was sure she just didn't want to look at me. "I convinced myself you had. I spent the summer convincing myself you'd changed, but seeing you here..." She opened the door with more force than necessary and it clunked against the neighbouring locker. "It's annoyingly clear you're still the guy who'll take a beating from a pair of Healers in the name of helping the underdog."

I blinked. Was she talking about Juno Scott and Smethwyck? "How do you know about that?" I turned around to face her, bewildered.

She bit her lip before taking a textbook out of the locker and turning back to look at me. "It's the real reason I came in here," she eventually admitted. "I heard them boasting about it in the corridor."

I didn't know what to say to that. I almost felt touched. Even when she despised me, Lily Evans would still come to my rescue countless times. I didn't understand her; and I wasn't sure I ever would.

"That's... thank you," I swallowed.

"How's your head?" She changed the subject.

I reached a tentative hand to touch her wrapping job. "Stellar, thanks."

She nodded before turning to tie her hair up in front of the mirror. We sat in silence for a few minutes and I wondered if I should get up and go – I was due on shift, after all. I wasn't sure if Lily was lying about us both needing to be with Healer Walton, but I knew I'd need to check my schedule because I was sure I was due somewhere.

Just as I made the decision to get out of there, she spoke again. "And I've been thinking, you know," she sounded hesitant, like she wasn't sure about what she was about to say.

I resisted the urge to say _'that's bad for you'_. "Oh?"

"I've been thinking about what you said that first day. About letting bygones be bygones." My heart hammered against my ribcage. "I mean, I can keep on cursing and screaming and hating you for what you did to me, keep on holding a grudge and telling myself 'I told you so' for the rest of my life – I can keep on doing all that if I want, but it's an exhausting way to live." She tutted to herself. "You taught me that."

I taught her the perils of holding grudges. Her gravest was what had kept us apart for years, after all. I wasn't sure where she was going with this.

"It's easy to hate you, James," she finished, finally turning to look at me and her gaze slamming straight into mine. "But it's easier to move on."

I felt an overwhelming urge to retch, but I was a complete mix of emotions; some part elation some part horror some part relief – and all part surprised. Lily Evans, who had spent the better part of her life looking for any excuse to hate me finally had a perfectly legitimate one, and she was giving it up? She was putting us in the past and shutting the door on it, and she wasn't going to loathe me or despise me or curse my name into the next century.

It was easy to hate me, she said. It was easier to leave me. I wasn't sure which option terrified me more.

"Don't," I'd whispered hoarsely before I could stop myself, my eyes still intensely on hers.

She blinked in surprise. "Don't?"

In that instance I dropped her gaze, unable to look at her. "It's easier when you hate me."

_It was_.

I hadn't realised she'd crossed the room until her shoes stepped into my line of vision, and she lowered herself on her haunches in front of me. She stared up at me with those bright green eyes full of apathy and empathy all at once and took my hand. Electricity danced across my palm. "Then this is your punishment," she murmured, so softly I wasn't sure I heard it. "I forgive you."

Simultaneously, something inside me broke and something inside me mended.

Then my hand was dropped and she was standing again, brushing imaginary dirt off her robes just as she had me. "Now come on, I wasn't lying when I said Healer Walton wanted us on shift." I was too shell-shocked to comment, just nodded mutely in a way I hope translated into the fact that I'd need a few minutes to recover before I could leave this room.

"James?" She spoke neutrally from the door and I looked back up.

I hated the way my heart skipped a beat. "Lily?"

She surveyed me for a pregnant moment. "We're still not friends."

And with that, she was out the door and I realised I was doomed to spend the rest of my life watching her walk away.

* * *

**Flashback #3**

I was brooding in the Head's common room mulling over my latest letter from my mother – she said we had important things to discuss and already cleared me an absence for next Saturday from Professor Dumbledore. She and Dad wanted me to go down and have a good hard talk about things. After all I'd seen over Easter, I didn't really fancy it; I didn't want to talk to _either_ of them right now. I scrunched the parchment up and threw it into the fire, sighing before slouching in the armchair I was occupying.

My opinion hardly counted for much – what if I wanted to stay at Hogwarts next Saturday? I would've been pissed if I'd had plans with Lily, but I wouldn't put it past them to have owled Dumbledore and asked him to read my mind or something like that to make sure I had nothing to clash with it. Ah, well. Nothing I can do about it. I'll just listen to what they have to say and then bugger off when I feel like it.

The familiar sound of the portrait opening and some distinct humming coming from the person entering had a smile slipping into place already, despite my glum mood. She never failed to do that.

"Hey James," Lily beamed as she saw me, giving me a perfunctory peck on the lips before moving to the bookcase in the back of the room. "I thought you had Quidditch practice this evening?"

"I cancelled," I replied, "no one wanted to on a Sunday night anyway."

She laughed as she carried on taking books from her back and slotting them into the appropriate shelves. I wanted a vinyl with just that sound on it. "I keep telling you, you'll end up pushing them too hard. And how'll you win the cup when you've got a mutiny on your hands?"

"Single-handedly," I responded, eyeing the fire and making sure my letter had burned entirely to a crisp. "And with great skill and finesse."

"Of course." I could sense the roll of her eyes before she turned back to me. "So if you're free now..." She glanced at the portrait hole as she made her way back over, perching on the arm of my chair. "Want to go for a walk?"

I sighed. It was the last thing I wanted.

"Not in the mood," I said glumly, and she looked at me with concern.

"Everything okay?"

I could've told her. I wanted to, but I didn't. It didn't seem right. "Yeah." She didn't believe me for a second and I could tell, and it made the moment awkward.

I don't think I've ever lied to Lily Evans before – I've never needed to. So it was odd to be putting up walls like that.

Lily, wonderful as she was, put a stop to the awkwardness by turning around and plopping herself in my lap, her back resting against one arm and her legs hanging over the other. My hands clasped around her waist instinctively and I kissed her on the cheek.

"We'll just have to stay in then," she murmured, turning her face to catch me in a slower kiss.

"Listen, Lily," I said after I broke away. "I have to go home next Saturday, so I'm really sorry I won't be able to patrol with you."

She frowned and bit her lip. "But we just got back from Easter." I could see her logical mind already trying to do the math between this and my poor mood, so I hurried to cut off that line of thinking.

"It's just a funeral that I have to be there for," I lied. Again.

"Oh," she sighed, resting her head on my chest. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I said, "I hardly knew them. Just a formality is all." I imagined my fictional relative to be like a Great Aunt Gertrude. Or a cousin Barry three times removed. Something obscure yet relevant enough to keep me away for a day or two.

_Why was I trying to punctuate an untruth?_

"Well I suppose I can spare you for a day," she made a show of huffing as she snuggled closer, and I wrapped my arms tighter around her. For some odd reason the show of affection made me weirdly uncomfortable, but I think I hid it from her.

Maybe I was just thinking too much about my father, or my mother – but that shouldn't count for anything, should it? Lily and I were completely different to them.

And I was nothing like my father.

* * *

**Present**

It had been a long day – like a really bloody long day when you think about my revelation with Remus, the reprimand from Hopkins, the beating from Juno Scott and his lackey (who I was yet to look up) and my emotionally charged conversation with Lily – and I was more than prepared to do what most blokes my age did when life was kicking them in the crotch. Go out and get wasted with my best mates.

Seeing Remus today really knocked it into me that it had been way too long since the four of us had seen each other, so following my shift I cornered Remus in the store cupboard, sent a quick owl to Peter at the Leaky Cauldron and apparated home just long enough to grab Sirius by the scruff of his collar, and before long we were out in a smoky muggle bar in the middle of London sitting down to a few beers. The Leaky Cauldron was off limits because Peter spent every day there, and the Three Broomsticks was always deserted these days.

Really, if you wanted to go out and have a good time, you'd do well steering clear of wizard pubs altogether – most magical folk preferred to stay indoors because of... well, things. Maybe you already know what I'm talking about.

"To youth," Sirius had sardonically toasted, and we'd clinked bottles glumly before drinking. I knew what he meant; this hardly felt like the breezy post-graduation life we'd imagined.

"We're eighteen," Peter had interjected with a sigh, "we're supposed to be having the time of our lives."

Peter Pettigrew, contrary to popular opinion, was clever. He wasn't intelligent, he wasn't academic; but he was insightful. Sure, he could be a bit of a coward when it came to certain things, but he was loyal – something Lily had said earlier that day had bothered me, about how I'd 'accepted Peter' when no one else would. It made him sound like a chore, and I hated that. I 'accepted' him about as much as I 'accepted' Sirius Black, each of them being two of the best friends I'd ever had. He was honest and hardworking, lacking the natural charisma Sirius and I possessed and the quiet certainty that Remus often sported, but he'd tried harder than any of us at Hogwarts to keep up. I admired that about him.

"Hard to have fun when you remember the reason we're cooped up in the corner of _Mountain Baby_," Remus stuck out his tongue in distaste. He hadn't been that impressed with the name of the pub we'd eventually selected.

I groaned. "Oh come on guys, cheer up. I didn't bring you all out here to have a whinge all evening. It's been ages since we've met up."

"I'm too busy saving the world," Sirius grinned and I shoved him in the shoulder.

"I see _you_ all the time. Way too much, in fact."

"There is no such thing," he replied with a sniff.

I grimaced. "I definitely saw too much of you that time in Puerto Rico."

"Oh contraire, you didn't stick around to see_ enough_."

I pretended to vomit on Remus, who thwacked me upside the head

"Then how about we make the evening about me?" He said dryly. "I am finally employed, after all."

Peter laughed. "To finally halving the electric bill!" We clinked bottles again like a bunch of saps trying to make the best of a shitty situation. Or a shituation, as Sirius loudly proclaimed a moment later.

Mountain Baby wasn't anything extravagant – we chose it because it was out of the way in muggle terms, but on a Friday night nowhere seemed to be deserted in the muggle world. Cigarette smoke was particularly pungent in the atmosphere, but there were nice shady corners for four men talking about the wizarding world to hide in without fear of being overheard. No one wanted to go to wizarding pubs these days. No one wanted to go out.

But like Peter had said – we were eighteen, almost nineteen in Sirius' case. We had to be doing something, and the Marauders never were put down by crappy politics.

"Besides that, we know we're here because James has been bitching for a night out for ages."

"Work is just... really shit," I sighed, running a hand through my hair. ("A _shituation_!" Sirius had corrected.)

Peter frowned. "Really?" He looked disbelieving. I remembered he worked as a waiter and tried to be tactful about this.

"My boss hates me. Like, literally despises me. He put me on some "Most Despised" list on my first day because I was twenty minutes late."

"It's your own fault," Remus shrugged.

"Actually, it's _Sirius'_ fault. I told him I needed to be up early so he cast a counter-jinx for my alarm charm and then neglected to wake me up," I growled. He barked with laughter and I smacked him again. "This dude – Hopkins – he's like the devil incarnate. Thinks he's some bigshot Healer and that gives him the right to throw his weight around."

Remus blinked. "Hopkins?"

"Yeah." I missed his look of surprise. "You know today he told Lily off because she saved a man's life _without supervision_. How messed up is that?"

"That's retarded," Peter agreed, taking a drink.

At the mention of Lily a moment of awkwardness hovered over us – the fact of Remus being a close friend of hers and my conversation with Sirius that morning still ringing in my ears. I'm pretty sure they're all still baffled by my decision even three months on.

Peter proceeded with the same patient caution I was commending him for internally (not externally, because he'd probably ask me if I was gay if I mentioned I liked that about him). "How is Lily, anyway?"

"She's alright," I shrugged, not entirely sure why I was holding back. Then I saw the earnest expression on all their faces and remembered that they're my best mates. "I spoke to her today – seriously, I mean. Said I was sorry and all that stuff."

"Are you kidding?" Remus' eyebrows had shot to his hairline.

I shook my head. "She said she doesn't hate me."

"Well that's great, isn't it?"

"Said we still can't be friends though, which I get. So it's fine."

It wasn't really fine. I couldn't tell them about every time my heart jumped when she looked at me, how broken I would feel every time she turned away and how helpless and useless I felt when she was being reprimanded by Hop. Those feelings were mine alone; my penance for the stupid way I'd acted.

"I just wish I knew what she was thinking."

"You know how you could'a avoided all the awkwardness?" Sirius chirped after glugging down another mouthful. I eyed him warily, thinking back to the conversation this morning and our wall over Lily Evans that was always there. I wasn't in the mood for a fight. "You could've been a bloody _Auror_ like we decided in fifth year."

This was okay; this was familiar territory – a running joke between the pair of us to do with me being a wimp after backing out of the Auror scenario we'd always been planning when seventh year came around. "I _told_ you Sirius, I just don't dig all the homoerotic beatings I'd get from Alastor Moody."

We laughed, and it was okay to forget the reason we were cooped up in a corner of Mountain Baby. We swapped stories about work, me with various encounters with Hopkins which, as the amount of beer flowing increased, became steadily funnier and less irritating – Sirius with his trainer Moody's antics, Peter and the most annoying patrons he'd ever come across including a duck needing to be served bread and water or the owner would sue, and Remus did a surprisingly accurate and hilarious impression of a couple of the people who'd interviewed him for jobs.

We talked about Hogwarts with an edge of wistfulness too – (Merlin, do you remember the _look_ on Filch's face when we-), the good old days. When the future was only extending and even with what we knew about what was going on outside the castle walls, it was still easy to worry about Transfiguration assignments and Quidditch practice.

But it didn't last all night. It couldn't.

There'd been a lull in conversation as we were still sporting grins at recounting one occasion in particular which involved hexing Mulciber to serenade apologies to Mary Macdonald after having inhaled copious amounts of helium.

"You know," Sirius started, "Crouch is thinking of letting Aurors use Unforgivables. Legalising it and all."

"What?" Remus gaped, and I could imagine my expression being similar.

He looked slightly affronted at the shock on our faces. "Well it's fair, isn't it? They're all using them on us. Gives us a better chance of fighting back."

"You don't need to sink to their level to fight back," I frowned, "that's what makes you better wizards in the first place."

"Doesn't make our jobs any easier though, does it?" He muttered scornfully.

"I think he's right," Peter put in. "They should be able to stop them by any means necessary, right?"

Remus didn't look like he liked it much either. "Remember Mary Macdonald? That sort of thing should never even have been created."

"But they _were_," Peter insisted, "and isn't this all about stopping the war?"

"The moment you make it okay it won't stop when the war is over," I shook my head. My father used to work in the MLE, and he'd always been dead set against it. Not that I cared much for his opinion now, but he at least had valid attitudes toward things. "It should never be okay to use them on a person."

"I'd hardly consider them people, James," Sirius muttered darkly. "Be serious."

I didn't even bother trying to make a pun.

Could've been a good one, though.

"I am," I said instead. "I just don't think killing them is the answer. That's what Azkaban is for." The air hung heavy between us for a moment, a clear dividing line between Sirius and Peter, and Remus and I. Maybe it was because I spent everyday in a hopsital trying to save people's lives that I just couldn't reconcile the use of any of the curses on another person. It just wasn't right. But I could also tell Sirius didn't want to fight, and neither did I. The matter floated to the ground as the silence dragged on, and we needed someone to trample over it so we could move on.

"I'll get the next round," I said, looking around at the nearly empty bottles. Peter jumped up and said he'd join me, following me to the bar.

"James," he started cautiously. "Lily still doesn't... know, does she?"

I feigned ignorance. "About what?"

"That you didn't get off with Chloe Beckett." My silence spoke for me as I slid a note (weird muggle money) over the bar to the barman. "Is it okay like this? She thinks you made out with her best friend."

I laughed. "Believe me, its better off this way." Peter was the only person I'd told that I hadn't done it, on an impulse. The rest of the world just thought I was an asshole. His doubtful look suggested he didn't believe me.

"You're always laughing, James. So optimistic – like you're always trying to make the best of a... shituation." His tone was coloured with concern until he apparently realised what he'd said and blushed very lightly. I was touched, and avoided saying it was a shituation of my own making. (This shituation thing is really catching on, isn't it?)

"Well, you know what they say," I smiled. "You know things are getting better when you can say '_oh well_' and laugh."

Peter looked away. "I used to think that," he said quietly, "until I see you talking about Lily."

And in that moment, in the middle of the crowded pub, I suddenly felt very lonely.

"Look," I cleared my throat, trying to remove the discomfort I felt. If nothing else, though, my affection for Peter had increased tenfold. "Don't call me daft for saying this but... I've missed you, Pete. You're a good mate – I don't think we tell you that enough."

He suppressed a smile and tried to shrug it off. "You gay for me or something?"

"Piss off," I rolled my eyes. He stuck out his tongue and grabbed two of the bottles passed to us and made his way back to the table. I was about to turn and join him when a tap on my shoulder had me turning back around.

"Excuse me, I think you dropped this," a woman I didn't recognise was holding a scrap of parchment out to me. I keep all kinds of random junk in my pockets, so I figured she might be right.

"Oh, thank you," I smiled gratefully, putting one of the beers down so I could take it from her and stuff it in my pocket.

I didn't know then, and I wouldn't know for a while, but that woman's name was Dorcas Meadowes, an old friend of my father's. More importantly, a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

And that scrap of parchment was my way in.

* * *

**And there you have it. I'd love some feedback for how I'm doing so far - even if it's just a random comment here and there! :) Thinking of doing the next chapter from Lily's perspective. Thoughts?**

**Reviews really are like unicorn blood to Voldemort,  
(does this make me Voldemort?)**

**~MyWhitelighter**


End file.
